Led Through the Mist
by mischief-unmanag3d
Summary: Only one brother returns from the Unknown, and while Gregory is insistent that Wirt is still alive, a tombstone clearly states otherwise. Months after his death, Sara finds herself questioning everything as the stories that Greg tells her about the Unknown begin to fall into place. (Beast!Wirt)
1. Prologue

_"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. _  
_Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. _  
_It is our light, not our darkness_  
_That most frightens us."_

_Marianne Williamson_

_"Are you ready to see true darkness?"_

Wirt's hand shook slightly as he held the lantern closer to his face, trying to regain composure while the Beast stood frozen in the wood. There was a moment of hesitance as he glanced around him; at the tree slowly enveloping his younger brother and the small bird flitting worriedly from branch to branch. The Beast remained still, watching onwards with blank eyes.

Taking a deep breath, Wirt opened the small metal door of the lantern.

"Ar-"His voice cracked, killing his momentary courage. Another deep breath. "Are you?"

Wirt lifted the lantern to his face as if to blow it out, freezing as the Beast bellowed.

"DON'T."

The hand of the Beast reached outwards as the shadowed creature trembled in what could have been fear or anger. It struck Wirt as odd, the desperation of the Beast only furthering his suspicion that the lantern was crucial to its existence.

"Don't." The Beast repeated.

Wirt lowered the lantern, exhaling with a sigh and a wearied glare towards the Beast. The two locked gazes, unable or willing to move. He thought about his options; considering the possibility of returning the lantern to the Woodsman and focusing on his return home. It just didn't seem complete, like he needed some sort of closure before he would feel comfortable leaving this place.

From behind the Beast, the Woodsman had gotten to his feet, and Wirt found himself able to break away from his thoughts momentarily. The Woodsman nodded almost imperceptibly as he gave Wirt a look that was both lost and resigned, and the boy made his decision.

Wirt opened the small metal door of the lantern once again, opening his mouth to speak yet closing it without a word. The Beast didn't need any confirmations or rambling poetic speeches before his soul was snuffed out, and Wirt certainly didn't need to waste his breath validating his actions. This needed to be done quickly. So that he and his brother could return home as soon as possible. For Greg.

It took one breath, and the world around him fell into complete darkness.

Wirt could vaguely hear the muffled gasps of Beatrice and the Woodsman as everything turned to black. He could still feel the cold metal of the lantern in his hand as he stood, attempting to call out to Beatrice but somehow not capable of making sound.

Instead of words, a soft glowing light escaped from his mouth and remained suspended in the air less than a foot in front of him. It permeated the darkness, and Wirt could see the small clearing of the wood once again.

Beatrice had perched upon the Woodsman's shoulder, and the two were as fixated upon the glowing orb as Wirt himself. Nothing moved while it pulsed slowly in the center of the clearing.

Wirt watched it in awe, but in the back of his mind he felt a trace of fear.

Slowly, the orb spiraled downwards, glowing brighter with every second. Wirt followed it with his gaze, freezing as he caught sight of the hand still grasping tightly to the lantern. While the light grew brighter, he could see that his body was slowly fading, becoming almost translucent. Something clicked, and there was a moment of realization as his mouthed opened in a soft gasp. Wirt looked up towards Beatrice, fear in his eyes as the light made its way towards its destination.

"Beatrice?" he found his voice once again, and he continued on with more determination. "I need you to help Greg get home. Tell him I need to stay here for awhile, or that I'll try and come back later- I don't know, just promise me you'll get him home, okay?"

"I promise…." for once the small bird had surprisingly little to say.

Wirt looked back down at his hand, barely visible in the light that was growing brighter by the second. He could tell that he only had a few seconds, if that. And although the proper reaction probably should have been fear or sadness, he just felt sort of shocked.

He took a breath, glancing back up towards Beatrice as she watched on with worried eyes. The necessity to say something, yet not quite knowing what.

"Goodbye, Beatrice"

As the lantern flooded with light it fell from invisible fingers and hit the ground. Flickering madly for a moment before continuing to shine upon the wood.

Beatrice flew down to the small pile of clothes at the base of the lantern, a small pair of scissors laying atop a familiar blue cape.

"Goodbye Wirt."

* * *

**AN:** The chapters from this point on will be considerably longer, and hopefully the first real chapter will be up by next week. Thank you all for reading 3


	2. Chapter 1

_"Minutes pass slowly within these hours._  
_Sounds of snow plows wake me from sleep."_

_Robert Savino_

The weather was transitioning quickly into true winter, cold winds and the potential of snow on the horizon. Sara shivered involuntarily as she pulled her jacket closer around her body, wishing she'd chosen more suitable attire for the long wait at the bus stop.

Looking down the block, she surveyed the area, hoping there was a small cafe or shop she had somehow missed earlier. It would have been nice to waste a few minutes inside buying a hot drink, or wandering through a heated building. However, this block was solely residential, and although she remembered passing a gas station a couple of blocks back, it wasn't worth the walk and potential risk of missing the bus.

Sighing, Sara took her phone out of her pocket; it was 2:35, yet another 20 minutes until the bus would arrive. 20 minutes out in the cold without anything to do.

It had seemed liked a good idea earlier; taking the bus to the library in the next town over to get some books for her research paper. Time to think, maybe grab a cup of coffee and get ahead of herself on studying. Now she just wished she'd taken her parent's offer for a ride.

Sara settled on the hard bench, taking out one of the heavy books in her bag and giving it yet another noncommittal leaf through. It was moments like these when she wished she hadn't deleted all the useless apps on her iphone. Sometimes you needed a distraction.

She still held the device in her hand anyway, taking a second to look through her contacts, messages, trying to find some sort of excuse to waste time for a few moments.

This was, she figured, a good time to alert her mother that should would be home in roughly an hour. Drafting a short text, Sara sent the message to her mother's cell, and returned to perusing the device for any means of amusement.

It happened the moment she put her phone down, reaching for something in her bag. A small insistent buzzing as the phone rang on vibrate.

Sara froze for a second as she read the contact information; Wirt Finley.

It was silly how a name could give her so many emotions. There was a moment she had even felt a sense of giddy hopefulness. Before realizing that Wirt was, well, Wirt had been dead for over a year now.

Now she resorted to staring at her phone screen and trying to contain the rush of emotions coursing through her. Trying to tell herself that this was silly, Wirt had been dead for a year and she should have come to terms by now. But that just wasn't realistic, and to be completely honest, she probably would never be completely over the death of her friend.

The phone rang one last time, and returned to her home screen. A small notification on the bottom of the screen alerting her of a missed call.

It took her a few minutes to notice that she'd been crying, and she quickly wiped away the tears; crying at a bus stop was one of the last things that she wanted to be doing right now. Or ever, honestly. Trying to regain some semblance of sanity, she tried to focus on something else, looking back at her library words blurred into one another until they were nearly unintelligible, and she resorted to staring at the ground in silence.

Nothing about this situation even made sense, the familiar sense of shock and overwhelming numbness that had accompanied the original news of his death returned. Maybe someone had found his phone, dialing random contacts in an attempt to find it's owner. Or his number had been given to someone else, or—

The last option was too ridiculous to even consider.

Sara pulled her phone out of her pocket again, just staring at the missed call notification. Breathing in deeply, she opened her contacts list and before she fully comprehended what she was doing she had hit the call button.

Listening to the dial tone, she held her breath, a small what if placing false hope in the back of her mind.

"Hello?" A woman's voice answered the phone, not unfamiliar but still unrecognizable.

"Hi this is Sara. Sara Moore. I think you called me a few minutes ago?"

"Oh hi, Sara, this is Mrs. Finley, Wi— Greg's mother…"

Sara paused, suddenly comprehending the situation. Wirt had never had a cellphone. She could almost remember the moment he'd scrawled down his number, his tone apologetic as he explained it was only his house phone, mumbling something about cell phones being expensive and almost useless in such a small town.

She tried to hold back a small strangled laugh, passing it off as a cough.

"Sara?"

"Oh, I'm sorry I got distracted—I'm still here!" There was a moment of silence on the other line, and Sara got the feeling that they were both thinking about the same person.

"..I was asking around for a babysitter and Mrs. Parker recommended you. I know this is last minute, but I have to take an extra shift at work and I was wondering if you would mind taking care of Greg after school this Monday?"

"I think I can do that, he goes to the local elementary school right?"

"You're a lifesaver. He's got an art class at the elementary school until four, and if you can pick him up I'll give him the keys and you should be able to walk to our house without a problem."

There was a slight pause, and Sara almost thought she heard a sigh on the other end. "Greg's been, well this year has been pretty hard on the whole family. I'm sure he'll appreciate hanging out with someone he knows for a bit. If you can get him out of the house, or help him have some fun? I can leave you both some money—"  
"Yeah, no, I understand. I'll plan something...don't worry about it Mrs. Finley."

"Thanks...it'll be nice having you around the house again."

Sara couldn't help smiling, there had been times when the Finley household had been like a second home, a place she'd go to nearly every day after elementary school. Her visits had diminished since middle school, under the guise of school projects or the occasional sincere, yet awkward, invitation to hang out. "Yeah… I'll call you if anything comes up, but otherwise I will be there at four on Monday."

"Alright, I can't thank you enough."  
"No problem. Bye, Mrs. Finley." She hung up with a sigh.

It certainly hadn't been the voice she'd been wanting to hear, but the conversation had been a relief regardless. And while there were parts of her that were terrified of stepping into his house again, seeing Greg and Mrs. Finley seemed like it might alleviate some of the pain.

Before she could dwell on everything for much longer, the bus rolled up to the stop, warranting a search for loose change and making sure that all of her belongings had made their way into her bag.

-0-0-0-

Monday came quickly, the weekend passing by at record speed. It wasn't long before Sara found herself waiting for Greg at the elementary school, sitting on the empty swing set as she counted the minutes til four.

Though she was wearing an overcoat and a thick woolen scarf, the weather wasn't as bad as it could have been for early January. The sun was just barely visible through the cloud cover, and underneath all her layers she actually felt warm. It was a happy change, and Sara felt content to swing slowly on the playground, gently rocking back and forth.

In all honesty, she hadn't planned anything extraordinary for today. A ten dollar bill was stuffed in her pocket in case they decided they needed a treat from the store. Apart from that she was relying on Greg to steer them on some sort of adventure; a task she thought he was well equipped for.

"Hey Sara the bee! Or I guess just regular Sara..." Greg made his way to the swing set, staring Sara down with a look of concentration. "Sara... the babysitter?"

The familiar antics of the seven year old put a smile to her face.

"We'll work on a better title later" Sara replied, getting off the swing. "How was school, dude?"

Greg grimaced "We spent the whole afternoon on math. And I didn't even get to make anything cool in art class."

Suppressing a laugh, Sara mused "I hated math when I was your age, but now one of my favorite classes is calculus. If you want any help I got your back."

"Gross."

"Yeah."

"What are we gonna do?" Greg questioned, and from the way he was bouncing in place Sara could tell he was ready to burn some energy. She braced herself, already regretting what she was going to say.

"We can pretty much do whatever you want to."

Greg's eyes lit up mischieviously and she could practically see the ideas racing through his head. Then his face grew thoughtful, and he declared seriously.

"I can't decide without consulting Jason Funderburker."

There was a moment of silence as Sara realized that Greg was talking about his pet frog, and not her classmate. She shook her head in amusement, "Then we'd better get you home. Can't have you making important decisions without him."

It didn't take the two long to get to the Finley household. Greg had practically dragged Sara down the street, humming little nonsense songs and telling her about the injustices of 2nd grade.

Standing on the steps Sara absentmindedly ran her fingers through her hair, giving Greg an expectant look. "You got the keys?" She was met with a pair of wide eyes, and it took all of her willpower to keep herself from groaning.

Who thought that giving a seven year old the responsibility of house keys was a good idea? Scanning the house, she looked for options. The front of the house had no entry point besides the front door, the windows obscured by large impassable hedges. Crossing through the yard she looked down the side of the building, spotting a small sliding window that was just slightly above her waist. Perfect.

She called Greg over. "Okay, what do you think about a little espionage mission?"

"Yeah!" Greg exclaimed, a large smile on his face as he looked at her attentitively.

"So, we're gonna have to be super sneaky about this. I'm counting on you, okay?"  
The seven year old made an attempt to look serious, straightening his back and giving her a little salute. "Yessir!"

Sara made her way over to the side window, the one she knew lead to the kitchen and was hopefully unlocked. After a few attempts she managed to get the window open just enough for a small person to wiggle their way through. Gesturing him over, she knelt down besides the open window.

"Here's the mission; I'm gonna get you through this window, and you're gonna sneak your way through the house and let me in through the front door. Don't let anyone see you, it's dangerous in there. I'm counting on you." There was a twinkle in her eye as Greg listened solemnly, nodding in acknowledgement.

"You got it, Captain Sara!" Greg replied, and Sara could see him desperately trying to maintain a serious expression.

Sara lifted him up to the window, and Greg easily climbed through, reaching the kitchen counter on the inside of the house. He gave her a thumbs up before jumping down onto the floor, barely on the ground for a second before sprinting off to the door.

The front door opened with a click, and although this crisis was averted Sara could only hope that the rest of day didn't follow this same trend.


End file.
